Week of December 14-18

Good afternoon, parents! We’ve had a great week! The kids have finished reading their literature circle books and I can honestly say that I believe everyone enjoyed the text they were assigned to read! Many are seeking out sequels and other books written by the same author! I am so proud of their enthusiasm and eagerness to keep on reading!

            Today we also had the opportunity to help our Kinderpups wrap their Husky Helping House gifts and to wrap our own! The kids had a blast and they love working with their Kinderpups! It’s been really neat to watch them step into leadership roles with their younger buddies! J

            Please read the message below for some important things you need to know in the coming days! Have a wonderful weekend!

Upcoming Tests

Division Test on Tuesday

Study Links for the Weekend

To help your child study for Tuesday’s division test, please have him/her practice a 4-5 problems at each of these links over the weekend.

Dividing Decimals Practice: 

http://www.coolmath.com/prealgebra/02-decimals/decimals-cruncher/division

Division Word Problem Practice: 

https://www.ixl.com/math/grade-5/divide-larger-numbers-by-2-digit-numbers-word-problems

Interpreting the Remainder Practice:

https://www.ixl.com/math/grade-5/divide-by-1-digit-numbers-interpret-remainders

Donuts with Santa

Tomorrow from 9am-noon is Donuts with Santa! Hope to see you there!

Schoolwide Pajama Day

On Thursday, December 17^th feel free to wear pajamas! We are having a schoolwide pajama day!

Catalogs Please

Please send in any catalogs you have at home so we can use them for a fun math project next week!

Playground Survey

The PTA is asking that all parents complete the following survey regarding our playground here at Harmony.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z8F8BND

Here’s what’s coming up next week in our curriculum!

7 Habits: We are going to take some time to step back and review the 7 habits next week as we refocus our personal and academic goals.

Social Studies:  We will begin a fun, new endeavor next week as we explore the Mission U.S. program online to build background information on the Revolutionary War.

Math:  During math we will wrap up our division unit and then we will begin an authentic project in which kids will complete a virtual shopping spree.

Reading: We will finish up our study of point of view and verb tense, and then work on comparing and contrasting literary texts.

Writing:  Our focus for writing will be to learn about perspective, how to see situations and events through another person’s eyes.  The kids will specifically analyze slavery through perspectives of various people including a slave, an abolitionist, a slave owner, and then their own perspective.

Week of December 7-11

Our newest Leader of the Week is…

Meghan!!!

Meghan is a pro at being proactive and at putting first things first! She is a reliable student who works hard to complete all of her assignments in class! I’ve noticed that she has been particularly good at giving detailed responses in both writing and in discussions. She also seeks first to understand during mini-lessons because he listens carefully to the teacher without interrupting. Meghan is a great leader!

Upcoming Tests

Science test over matter on Wednesday, December 9^th (Study guide coming home today)

Math test over Division on Friday, December 11^th

Dates to Remember
December 11^th~Husky Helping House donations due

December 12^th~Donuts with Santa

December 18^th~Class Holiday Party @ 9:00am

Survey for Playground Purchases

Please take the following survey to provide your input for how PTA can best improve our playground.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z8F8BND

Husky Helping House

Thank you so much to the many people who have donated gifts! We have filled all the items on the child’s wish list! Wow! If you were unable to contribute, we still need tape, wrapping paper, a couple of small boxes to hold nail polish, and gift tags. Email me if you’d like to send one of these items in and I’ll assign you one. Thank you!

Here’s what’s coming up!

Science: During science, we will wrap up and test over our unit on matter.

Social Studies: We will continue to study slavery and then begin a unit on colonial Williamsburg as the students take a “tour” of the town in class.

Math: We will wrap up our study of division through lessons on dividing decimals and interpreting the remainder.

Reading:  The kids are really enjoying their literature circle books and they are excited to finish them up next week!  We discuss each week and the kids seem very interested in the plots and the characters!

Writing:  During writing, our focus will be on learning about point of view and verb tense. These concepts will be put to work in their writing next week as the kids have an opportunity to write slave journals from the perspective of a slave working on a plantation.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about your child, and please check out our blog to see the newest Leader of the Week! Have a great weekend!

The Physical Properties of Matter.

During science, we experimented with physical properties of matter!  We tested to see how different objects would react when we put the object up to a magnet, a lamp to see if it reflects light, and a dryer to see if it conducts heat. We also tried to stretch the object to see if it was elastic. We had so much fun during this assignment!

Colonial Regions Info

Watch these videos during social studies & discuss with your group members.
How were each of these colonial regions unique?

Watch this link on Tuesday: The New England Colonies

Watch this link on Wednesday: The Middle Colonies

Watch this link on Thursday: The Southern Colonies

Renaissance Research

Websites for Renaissance Thinkers Research

 Be sure to create a thesis and to choose your subtopics before you begin gathering extensive research on your Renaissance person!

 www.ducksters.com

 http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/subjects/renaissance.htm

 http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3753904

 http://www.midrealm.org/mkyouth/links/peopleren.htm

 http://www.biography.com/

Events from the week of October 26!

Our newest Leader of the Week is...

 Emory!!!

      Emory is being honored this week for her use of habits 1, 4, and 5!  She, like many of our students, is very proactive and comes in each day with a wonderful attitude!  She is ready and eager to learn every day!  She also uses Think Win-Win daily as she works hard to help others and to seek solutions that will make everyone happy!  She is also a good listener.  Emory definitely seeks first to understand, and then often helps others!  Keep up the hard work, Emory!

Red Ribbon Week Fun!!

        BizTown was a huge success!  This year I had a chance to be a little more involved in many of the businesses and I was blown away by the kids' work ethic!  In the restaurant, people would start sweeping or wiping down tables without even being asked to!  CPAs throughout the town worked extremely hard to print and pay invoices as well as to get everyone their paychecks so they could spend their hard-earned money!  No matter which business I went into, all the kids were hard at work, and they each took their jobs very seriously.  It was a great experience!  Here are a few pictures from our visit below!

Native American Murals and Dwellings

Everyone has been chosen to research a Native American tribe and they had to draw a picture of the dwelling and the region where that tribe was located.

The final murals turned out great!

Everyone even got to make a model of a Native dwelling from their cultural region!